I would say that it was the whole struggle with life on a daily basis. Even now, I even struggle sometimes with even replying to the comments. Life seems to be so difficult, with so many complex questions and conflicts. It may be that others don't struggle with angst as I do, and even though I do enjoy philosophy, the starting point is pain and conflict.

I had always had very broad intellectual interests, but was always searching for ever more and more fundamental principles underlying all of those interests. So over my teens I increasingly focused my natural science interests toward physics, and my social science interests toward something in the direction of economics or political science.

Digging deeper into each of those, I eventually realized that my interests were essentially in what I now recognize as roughly metaphysics and ethics. When I discovered professional philosophy and realized that those two things were, broadly speaking, what the field was all about, I thought that that field was the place where I would find what I was looking for.

So that’s what I eventually got my BA in.

“The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.”

-Bertrand Russell — khaled

That is an excellent quote that I heard once long ago and then forgot exactly what it was and who said it. I think I’m going to have to quote that in my book, right after the part where I say:

“The general worldview I am going to lay out is one that seems to me a naively uncontroversial, common-sense kind of view, i.e. the kind of view that I expect people who have given no thought at all to philosophical questions to find trivial and obvious. Nevertheless I expect most readers, of most points of view, to largely disagree with the consequent details of it, until I explain why they are entailed by that common-sense view.”

For me I always liked my life but I couldn’t really give an answer as to why besides “there’s cool stuff I guess”. When I was younger I got curious and wanted to find a grand justification for living, so I started with a lot of existentialist/philosophy of life stuff like the Stoics, Taoists, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Camus, etc. I never really got a clear answer, but these days the question doesn’t really come about. I’m much more into analytic stuff like meta-ethics these days which I don’t see much of an interest in around here

Cool thread.

For me, I lived a sheltered life in childhood, growing up in rural West Virginia. As a result, I presume, I was very naive and ignorant well into adolescence. A combination of weed, George Carlin, and Marilyn Manson lead me to begin questioning Christianity. Once I renounced religion, I became increasingly curious about all the other beliefs I may have held that were wrong. I started with Nietzsche, and probably understood very little of it. However, I really enjoyed trying to discover fundamental aspects of reality, meaning, behavior, etc. It just felt really exciting, like I was learning powerful secrets about the world. I also realized that a lot of philosophy is simply over my head, and there’s some I find uninteresting. So, I switched majors in college to psychology and just minored in philosophy. Which was probably for the better. I’m more interested in things like how the brain works, or how environment affects behavior, and the place where philosophy intersects these topics (consciousness, ethics, etc.).

What got you into philosophy? — khaled

Stupidity.

And entropy.

What got you into philosophy? — khaled

The need to know the answer to the question, why?

LSD

What got you into philosophy? — khaled

As a teenager, the word 'philosophy' fascinated me. Just like the word 'abroad'.
What did it mean, where would it take me...?

So, I bought the book, 'Philosophy Made Simple' and took a trip to Austria.

Later on, I followed Marcus Aurelius and Goethe to Italy.

No LSD or pounds, shillings and pence involved .
But plenty of Euros for an Aperol or Hugo spritz at Lake Garda.
Don't know Goethe's preference but he drank in the the whole atmosphere.
Here's some of his writing:

https://www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/song/610

Mignon
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn,
Im dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn,
Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,
Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht?
Kennst du es wohl?
Dahin! dahin
Möcht’ ich mit dir, o mein Geliebter, ziehn.

English Translation © Richard Stokes

Do you know the land where the lemons blossom,
Where oranges grow golden among dark leaves,
A gentle wind drifts from the blue sky,
The myrtle stands silent, the laurel tall,
Do you know it?
It is there, it is there
I long to go with you, my love.

-------

So that was the beginning and where it led. Still curious after all these years...

:flower:

Grazie mucho :cool:

When I was a young teenager, I read science fiction novels to escape the drudgery of my existence. The more immersive they were, the better. I used to dismantle the books and intersperse the pages into my textbooks so that I could enjoy them all day at school.

After many years of doing this, I came to realize that I already lived on a strange planet and had no idea why it was the way it was. I haven't gotten very far in my explorations but can now understand some of the language. I have a working visa but still have not become a full citizen.

Predominantly, some form of deep depression, and then somehow it lessening once realizing that I'm not the only guy depressed here.

The belief that everyone else "has it all figured out" and I'm the one who doesn't, and that I need to keep up.

To me, it was wanting to know what created God, what the beginning of everything is, if there is one.

fo' real do?

It was still legal, then. (Now I'm showing my age.)

What got you into philosophy? — khaled

Reading an article in a magazine about Immanuel Kant when i was 15.

I first began reading books on the mind, and philosophy, in early adolescence, because I was aware of so many questions and unexplored areas. I used to stop off in a local library on the way home from school, and my parents used to be worried where I was. Reading in corners in libraries and other places has become my mode of being. It is probably also about thinking about the corners of life, which are less remote from the main territories which we ordinarily inhabit.